


Mysterious

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [678]
Category: Scooby Doo - All Media Types, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:26:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: trcunning askedThe Old Guard & Scooby Doo - both hangout in abandoned churchs/graveyards
Series: prompt ficlets [678]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/53353
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Velma isn’t sure what she saw.

Years go by. Velma unmasks monsters and chases ghosts and learns to trust her eyes. And every single mystery she finds herself searching the shadows for another trace of what she thought she saw.

The second time, there is blood. A lot of blood, enough that Shaggy goes from upright to on the ground in a single, locked-knee fall. Velma hesitates between giving chase and staying. Scoobs whines, truly worried, and Velma let’s go of the chase.

The third time, Velma has the scent of the hunt and nothing to hold her back from her answer. She runs, chasing a shadow first cast ten years and a hundred adventures ago.

She catches up with the stranger in time to see the property developer at the heart of their latest mystery draw a gun on her. “No!” Velma yells in desperate warning.

The developer startles, moves erratically, their finger closing around the trigger.

Getting shot hurt just as much as she feared it would. Velma forgets the developer, forgets her dark-haired ghost, forgets everything as she stares at her own blood spilling out and staining her orange sweater a rusty red.

She looks up as strong, worn hands catch her. Her vision is darkening into a tunnel but Velma still sees stormy blue eyes.

It’s not the worst last thing to ever see.

Velma wakes, which is the first surprise. She’s not in a hospital, but a van, and the hum of the tires is oddly soothing after a decade in the Mystery Machine.

“You’re awake. Good.”

Velma can only see the speaker in silhouette, the glow of the street lights casting her in shadow.

The flicker of light and dark also reveals and conceals the bloody stain on her sweater. Velma stares at it and takes a deep breath before clambering up into the passenger seat.

The older woman is driving easy, one hand on the wheel, letting Velma take her time to get comfortable. “I’m Velma. Who are you?”

“Andromache of Scythia.” Those same eyes, blue as sunset after a storm. “But you can call me Andy.”

“Next question. What’s going on?”

“Welcome,” Andy sighs, shifting her hand on the wheel. “To eternity.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tenaciouszombiearcher on tumblr said "give her a bow" and neviditelny said "DO IT" so I did it

Velma is well-traveled, but the Old Guard are next level. They have enough resources and insufficient fucks to give, and so several cars, trains and a private jet later, Velma is somewhere she thinks is outside Copenhagen.

She could be wrong. She’s never been to Denmark before.

The house is nothing much, blond brick and square, protected from the winds blowing across the flat fields by a hedge that is straggly and unkempt. From the kitchen window you could look across the scrubby yard and through to the only road in.

Velma may never have been to Denmark before, but she knows a good defensive situation when she sees one.

Velma’s spent half her professional life in basements, but there’s no ground to dig around here. Joe takes her up, instead, into an attic smelling of birds and dust. “We have a bit of everything, here,” he says with that smile that always makes Velma’s shoulders drop back down. She’s only known him days, and she has to keep reminding herself of that. “What takes your fancy?”

 _Everything_ turned out to be armour, both plate and kevlar. An old umbrella stand had been repurposed as a sword holder, different lengths and curves and gleams of alloys shining in the low light. Maces and axes and boxes of knives.

Velma lets her fingers drift lightly across it all, dragging trails in the dust.

Andy has already seen Velma shoot, a stop-over in Madrid and the 9mil heavy in her hands. Mystery Inc. usually didn’t deal in guns; they protected themselves with facts and running and the knowledge that while Scoobs really was a sweetheart, to outside eyes he was five feet and a hundred pounds of canine muscle and teeth and potential threat.

But she’d thought it might be useful to know other things, in the mystery solving line of work. So, years ago, she’d signed up for a course and learned the basics. It wasn’t comfortable then, and the recoil still felt harsh and alien now.

Something not metal snags her finger and Velma stops. The feathers are a little ragged, but smooth flat under a stroke of her hand. She pulls the arrow out of the quiver, examines the metal tip. “Ah.” Joe comes over to stand a respectably close distance away. “Nicky’s might be a bit long for you, but I am sure we can cut them down?” There’s a question there, and she appreciates being asked.

At her nod, he’s off to make the arrangements.

It’s evening by the time they call her out to the yard. She can smell sawdust and glue from their craft, and straw from the bale that has clearly been dragged in from elsewhere.

It’s Nicky who walks her through the technique, accent soft in her ear as he talks her through nock, rest, draw, hold, release.

He nods, proud and satisfied as her spray of arrows narrows in on the centre of the target with every end.

“Arrows are good, even now,” Nicky says, helping her pulls the arrows free. “Quiet. Subtle. Like you.”

She squeezes her hand, feels the leather and wood of the bow’s grip, warm in her palm. “Again?”

“Again.”


End file.
